


we are alive (here in death valley)

by kellybean135



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Feels, Give the OCs a chance, I suck at math so the ages might not add up, M/M, No Beta, No memory erasure, Non-Linear Narrative, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellybean135/pseuds/kellybean135
Summary: Alessandro di Angelo-Born December 19, 1926Luca di Angelo-Born December 2, 1929Bianca di Angelo-Born November 12, 1930Nico di Angelo-Born January 28, 1933Nerezza di Angelo-Born February 6, 1934The story of their childhood, how they drifted apart, and how they came back together.Or...What would happen if Nico and Bianca had more siblings





	1. Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?

"Oh, hello, Nico," the woman at the front desk said warmly. "You're here to see your sister, I presume."

Nico nodded. "How is she, today?"

The nurse talked as she led Nico down the dimly lit hall of the psych ward. "She's mostly lucid, but she's had some trouble with remembering who people are. She hasn't attacked anyone, though."

"Good, good," Nico said absently, his eyes flitting towards doors that other patients were banging on.

"Your other brother came to visit yesterday," the nurse said.

"Yeah, I know Luca visits sometimes."

"Alessandro, actually. I haven't seen him in years; Nerezza seemed so excited." Nico's blood froze in his veins.

"Alessandro?" he asked tightly.

"He mentioned that you aren't close. Sick relatives can be hard on the family, I've heard."

"Something like that," Nico muttered. 

At the end of the hall was Nerezza's room. The door was heavy and bolted shut. From the small window, Nico could see it was flooded with light. The nurse unlocked the door.

Nerezza was sitting with her legs crossed on a bed. The light made her look washed-out, or maybe she was getting unhealthier. The air was stagnant and the room pristine, too pristine. When they were kids, Nerezza's room had always been filled with sketches and things she stole from Bianca and Luca.

Nerezza's head shot up and she gazed towards the open door. Nico searched her eyes for any recognition, but they remained blank. The nurse left, locking the door shut behind her.

"Ciao, Nerezza." Nerezza's head turned slowly towards Nico. 

"Niccolò Antonio!" she said with an empty sort of cheer.

"È solo Nico, ricordi?" *It's just Nico, remember?*

"Ho un fratello di nome Nico," Nerezza said in a strange voice. *I have a brother named Nico.*

Nico sat next to her and held her hands in his. "Sono io. Sono Nico. Tuo fratello." *That's me. I'm Nico. Your brother.*

She giggled. "Non sei mio fratello. È venuto a trovarmi ieri." *You're not my brother. He came to visit me yesterday.* Her expression became confused. "Perché non mi hai fatto visita ieri?" *Why didn't you visit me yesterday?*

"Mi dispiace non esserci, ero occupato. Ma sono qui ora," Nico said. *I'm sorry I wasn't there, I was busy. But I'm here now.*

"Puoi dire a Niccolò Antonio che mi manca?" Nico smiled sadly. *Can you tell Niccolò Antonio that I miss him?*

"Certo, Nerezza," he said. Her face went blank and she stared at nothing.

"Ciao, Bianca," Nerezza said. 

Nico sighed and stood up, brushing the top of her head with his lips. She didn't react, distracted by the sight of their long dead, reborn sister who wasn't really there.

...

Luca sprinted down the steps of his family villa, Niccolò close behind. 

"Ho intenzione di ucciderti, Luca!" Bianca yelled from the top of the steps. Part of her hair was singed and her clothes were covered in soot.

"Dovrai prendermi prima io! Run faster, Nico," Luca urged. His younger brother stumbled behind him on short legs.

The chase continued outside into the streets of Venice, dodging passerby and soldiers. It had rained the night before, so it was slippery, and the sun was hidden behind clouds. 

Luca turned around to see Bianca get her foot stepped on and laughed. When he turned back around, he got a face full of black fabric. He and the man in front of him tumbled to the ground, Luca laughing along the way.

Luca stood sheepishly and lowered his eyes when the man glared. Bianca caught up with him.

She punched him in the shoulder. "Stronzo!" she hissed. "Stai bene, signore?" Bianca asked the man.

"Sono davvero dispiaciuto," Luca said. But the man wasn't looking at either of them. Following his gaze, Luca saw Nico sinking rapidly in a canal, several gondolas making beelines to save him.

...

Bianca di Angelo wiped tears from her eyes and threw her arms around Alessandro's shoulders.

"Ci vediamo presto," she said. If the fact that Alessandro remained stiff and didn't hug her back hurt her, she didn't mention it. Bianca released him.

Bianca and Luca shook hands, as overly formal as they had always been to each other.

"Take care of them," Alessandro instructed.

It was 2007, and the remainder of the di Angelo family was splitting up. After the death of their mother, the siblings had been ordered to live in the Lotus Hotel and Casino for the past seventy years. Now, Bianca, Nico, and Nerezza were being released. Luca and Alessandro would have to stay behind for a little while longer.

"We'll make Father release you," Nico said. "Knowing him, he just forgot he had five kids instead of three."

They all smiled at that. (Except for Nerezza--she never took kindly to jokes about Father.) The children loved their father, but they all knew how absent he was. He hardly even remembered their names.

Nerezza was the last to say goodbye, hugging Alessandro tightly. She was the baby of the family, and for that reason, Alessandro actually hugged her back. Bianca noticed that Nico never gave him a goodbye hug or even a handshake.

Alecto, who was disguised as a lawyer (A male lawyer, for whatever reason.) sent them on a bus to Maine while she flew overhead, killing any monsters that came close. Sometimes, Bianca wondered what the mortals saw. A vulture, maybe? Bianca sat across from Nico and Nerezza on the bus. Nerezza fell asleep almost immediately, resting her head on Nico's shoulder. Her brother looked restless, making constant bathroom breaks and bouncing up and down in his seat.

When they arrived at Westover Hall, they were given uniforms and dorms, and told not to speak unless spoken to. Bianca could only imagine how Nico would fare in that environment, since they were separated by age and gender. 

Bianca hardly saw his siblings, and instead decided to focus on learning about what had happened during their years inside the hotel. There was such a thing as a polio vaccine now, and people had actually walked on the moon. The war that had seemed so urgent and dangerous, the war that had taken Bianca's uncles and his family's servants, was over. It had ended decades ago. Phones could be carried anywhere, cars could reach new speeds, space travel hardly made the news. It was all so overwhelming that Bianca felt almost numb. (Of course, all those realizations paled in comparison to the knowledge that she would never see his family again. Her brothers and sister were all she had left.)

...

One month into their stay at Westover, Dr. Thorn was hired as the new vice principal. Soon after his arrival, Alecto appeared as the lawyer again, and the children were placed on a ship (Poseidon was less likely to detect them than Zeus), this time headed to Venice. At around the same time, Percy Jackson was sent on his second quest. 

...

Percy ran from game to game, hardly stopping long enough to think about when he should sleep. (Leaving never even crossed his mind.) The Lotus Hotel and Casino was filled with virtual reality games, bungee-jumping, sharpshooting, and other things Percy had never had the money to even dream about doing. 

On his way to the waterslide for the fifth time, a teenager grabbed his shoulder.

"Hey, man, let go," Percy said, trying to pull away from the iron grip.

The boy looked at him very seriously. "You shouldn't be here."

Percy paid no attention to his words, instead scanning the room for Grover and Annabeth. There had been so many monster attacks that he had no reason to believe this guy wasn't one.

"You'll never leave. You'll never *want* to leave."

"Why would I want to leave?" Percy asked. This place was amazing. Already, he was getting distracted by the sound of screams from the bungee-jumpers.

"You have to leave, son of Poseidon. It has already been so soon since the last war between the gods. The world won't survive another."

...

In the kitchen of the abandoned di Angelo villa, the skeleton of the family's former maid finished making breakfast. There wasn't much to cook with--just some eggs, flour, and sugar. She managed to make it into pancakes and eggs.

The skeleton walked over to the record player and placed the needle on the disk. The voice of a man started to stream from the player. The skeleton rang a bell, signaling for the children to come downstairs and eat.

"During extreme weather conditions, a climber must possess the wisdom to determine when evacuation is inevitable," the man droned in the background of four children's footsteps coming down the creaking stairs.

The di Angelo villa had not been inhabited for decades. After the death of Maria, Zeus had killed the rest of the family as a warning to Hades. If he broke the oath, the woman he had an affair with and his children would suffer. Little did he know that all five of Hades' children were still alive.

The children sat and ate in silence. Luca flicked a finger and the nameless maid fell to the ground in a pile of bones. Nerezza read, hardly touching her food. Nico ate with gusto, staring longingly out the window. Luca rarely allowed either of them to leave the villa because of the number of monsters there were in Italy. It was too close to Rome for it to be safe for any  
demigod.

Bianca's eyes were turned down, and she ate carefully, like she didn't want to draw attention to herself. Luca sat at the head of the table, his back straight, trying to fill the shoes Hades, Alessandro, and Maria had left for him to fill.

They all shared the same silky black hair and olive skin. Luca and Bianca both had freckles and looked like they could be twins. From Luca's few memories of Papà, he could tell Nerezza looked a lot like him. Alessandro, too.

Nerezza closed her book and cleared her throat softly. "I want to shadow-travel," she said to Luca. She had been asking for weeks, but Luca insisted that she and Nico weren't ready.

"And I want to live somewhere other than this shithole, but we don't get what we want, do we?" Luca was cranky this morning. When Bianca had gone out for food last time, she had forgotten to buy coffee, and Luca had just run out of what he had saved. Luca was always cranky when he hadn't had coffee.

"You could always leave," Bianca said. She and Luca were fighting again. Luca couldn't remember what about, but she was probably wrong, so he wasn't apologizing. "We'd be fine without you."

"Tightly knot the ends of the rope. Once anchored, thread the doubled rope through the legs, front to back."

"What's the point of listening to these tapes if we can't actually do anything?" Nico asked through a mouthful of food. Luca reflexively looked towards Mamma's chair, where she would have chided Nico for his lack of manners. Bianca was sitting there now.

"Those are for worst-case scenarios," Luca said, exasperated. "Look, Zeus can't find us in here because of Papà's protection. So here is where we'll stay until Papà finds a more permanent solution."

...

 

Naturally, Nico left as soon as he had the opportunity. Bianca was replenishing their supplies, and because of increased monster activity, Luca went with her to protect her. Once they were gone, Nico snuck out the window. He held his breath when going past katoblepones and ran through the streets he had spent so much time in as a kid, past the canal where he had nearly drowned.

At the time, he hadn't realized that it was Poseidon that caused him to be dragged underneath the water. Only Luca and Alessandro had been made privy to the godly side of the war.

Nico made a small jump through the shadows across the canal. "Not ready, my ass," he muttered. Mamma would have washed his mouth out with soap. He made another jump, this time to Rome.

A dracaena swung a spear towards him, but he waved at it and dove back into the shadows. That was when Nico knew he should have taken Luca's advice. He lost control and spun through the shadows, lost souls grasping at his clothes and whispering in his ears.

He struggled not to panic and focused on home. On the creepy family portrait above the fireplace and the lost souls of his ancestors wandering as shades.

He did not end up back at home. He caught a glimpse of a rushing river and teenagers dressed in armor before the ground rose to meet his falling form.

...

"Idiota!" Bianca yelled, swiping at Luca's head with a frying pan. Her older brother ducked. "If you hadn't followed me, he wouldn't have gotten out!"

"Well, sorry that I decided to treat him like his age, which you suggested," Luca said. "He isn't a cat, we shouldn't have to worry about him running away."

"Well, we do, because you're so overbearing," Bianca said. "He doesn't know how to do things on his own because you refuse to teach him. Who knows where he is now?"

"Nerezza, did he say where he was going?" Luca asked. Nerezza shook her head. "Shit."

"If the Olympians find one of us, they find all of us," Bianca said nervously. The girl who had attacked him with a frying pan moments before shrunk back into her usual unsure self.

"I know," Luca said.

"And the monsters have been trying to recruit us. He may have been captured."

"I know."

"Stop saying 'I know' and do something. I can't be stuck here with you two." Nerezza asked.

...

Marcus was growing tired of being praetor. Day in and day out, there were endless complaints, and hardly any of them hardly mattered.

"No one has cleaned Hannibal's pen."

"The Fifth Cohort isn't pulling their weight in war games."

"Centurion Michael was unfairly elected."

"I'm out of stuffed animals for the augury." 

Half of the things people came to him for could have been solved by centurions. He was a leader, not an errand boy or a babysitter.

"Last one," Marcus' counterpart, Elizabeth said. "New demigod found at the border."

"Cool," Marcus said. "You wanna catch a movie or something? Happy Feet? Cars?"

Elizabeth laughed. "We can't sneak out anymore. We're the example now, remember?"

"We could always lie and say we're on a quest," Marcus said, though he knew that wasn't possible. A praetor wasn't supposed to have fun.

Ezekiel (Though everyone called him Zeke.), a legacy of Apollo from the Third Cohort, walked in. He was still in his hospital scrubs, and a strange black liquid stained them.

"State your case," Elizabeth said dismissively.

Zeke wrung his hands nervously. At least he had the sense to be intimidated by them.

"A demigod appeared at the border yesterday night. And by appeared, I mean literally appeared. Eyewitnesses said they blinked and suddenly, he was there. His nose and ears were bleeding. We didn't know it was blood at first because...well, it was black. Like, tar black. It's been turning redder as time has passed. He's been in and out of consciousness for the past few hours."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Black blood?"

"That's what the labs said. The color change was caused by magic, but we don't know its origin."

Elizabeth looked troubled. "Did anyone say anything about melting out of the shadows."

Zeke nodded. "Yeah, a couple of people. Why?"

"That's a trademark of children of Pluto. So is the black blood. Did your hands go through him at any point?"

Zeke nodded. "Several times."

Marcus looked at her incredulously. Pluto hadn't sired children in decades. A child of Jupiter was already in their midst, and now Pluto? One of these days, a child of Neptune was going to show up.

"Have you gotten a name?" Marcus asked.

Zeke shook his head. "But every time he wakes up, he asks for either Bianca or Nerezza. And one time he said, Luca's going to kill me."

Who could they be? Friends? Siblings?

"Take him to the augur once he wakes up. We'll investigate this further," Elizabeth said. "You're dismissed." Ezekiel practically ran out of the room.

...

Elizabeth wasn't expecting the mysterious new demigod to be a nervous ten-year-old boy with an Italian accent. 

"What is your name?" Marcus asked tiredly. Elizabeth had hoped that her partner in praetorship would be less lazy. "*Full name.*"

The boy took a very long time to answer. 

"Any day, now," Eliza said.

"Sorry, my brain's a bit fuzzy," he said. It was clearly a lie. Argentum growled at Marcus' feet. "Antonio Esposito." Argentum barked.

"Would you like to change that answer?" Marcus asked, giving him a second chance to tell the truth. Elizabeth would hate to kill a little boy. She told the dogs in Latin not to eat him.

"Antonio Benito Esposito?" Aurum and Argentum sprung up, eager to devour the liar. Eliza didn't know whose genius idea it was to have them eat anyone who lied. If she pretended to not hate Marcus, there was always the risk of them killing her.

"You should keep better control of your dogs," Antonio said, not remotely scared of the metal hounds.

"Where are you from, Tony?" Marcus asked, already giving him a nickname.

"Venice," Antonio said, rocking on his heels. "It's in Italy. Bianca always says you can't expect Americans to know basic geography."

Marcus smiled. "She isn't wrong. Who is she? Your sister?"

"Yeah," Tony said after a moment's hesitation.

"Do you have any other siblings?" Eliza asked.

A long pause. "No. It's just us." Another growl from Argentum.

"Do you know where you are?" Eliza asked.

"America, I think?"

"We're in San Francisco, in a place called Camp Jupiter. It's a safe place for half-bloods. Do you know what a half-blood is?" Tony shook his head. "It's someone who is half Olympian, half mortal."

"Olympian...athlete?"

Marcus chuckled. Like he was any different. "No, an Olympian god."

Tony's eyes widened. "You mean like Zeus and Athena?"

"Jupiter and Minerva," Eliza corrected. "The Greek gods have been dead for millennia. Their Roman forms are the only ones around." Tony looked incredulous, which was strange. Gods existing? Sure. The possibility that they were Roman instead of Greek? No way.

"When can I go back home?" Tony asked.

"Soon," Marcus said. "So you can say your goodbyes and all. And so you can bring your sister, too."

"We can't send him now," Eliza said in Latin. "There's too much monster activity, and with it so close to the Ancient Lands, he'd never survive."

"I'm just dragging the conversation out to see when he'll end this charade," Marcus assured her.

"My grandfather taught me Latin," Tony interrupted. "So don't bother trying to talk about me behind my back. And I'm not lying." Argentum growled again, and looked at her pleadingly, like he was asking, 'Why can't I eat the lying human?'.

"The truth will come out eventually," Marcus said. "Do you want to tell us now, or have us find out later?"

"I'd like Option 2," Tony said. His gaze was fixated on some shadows in the corner.

Marcus sighed. "Very well. You're dismissed."

Tony scurried out, nearly tripping on his untied shoelaces.

Marcus put his hands behind his head and leaned back. "It seems we have a pathological liar in our midst. How likely do you think it is that he's a child of Pluto?"

"He definitely is," Eliza said. "I just don't understand the purpose of lying about it."

"His sister or father may have told him to keep quiet."

"I'd prefer if he went back to Venice and never came back," Eliza admitted. "He's...unsettling. Something about his eyes put me off."

"Just imagine what he'd be like as an adult." Marcus whistled. "The only thing worse than a creepy little forker is a creepy big forker." In her head, Eliza translated it to the very real possibility that the son of Pluto could become a threat.

"It would be better if he stayed," Eliza decided. "You know, keep your enemies close, and all."

An hour later, Jason Grace wandered into the infirmary to find two boys, one older than him and one slightly younger, arguing with each other in Italian. The older one grabbed the younger by the collar, fell backward into a shadow, flipped Jason off, and disappeared.

...

Luca's relationship with his brothers was always complicated. Alessandro had always been a sort of substitute dad, overbearing and strict. Nico, on the other hand, was a disrespectful goofball. Luca used to be like that.

When Alessandro was in charge, Luca was the rule-breaker, the prankster, the sassy one. He and Bianca used to steal from Nonno's liquor cabinet and play pranks on Alessandro. Bianca would never drink, of course, but Luca did, because he could afford to be the fun one. His siblings didn't need two responsible older brothers. If Alessandro was the dad, Bianca was the mom, Nico was the hyperactive son, and Nerezza was the creepy daughter, Luca was the fun uncle. The one that was always soaked in liquor and that couldn't hold down a job, but still loved by everyone.

Alessandro couldn't stand him. He always seemed to expect something from him. Luca never knew what. He treated him like an idiot, not that Luca could blame him. He did act like an idiot. But he really wasn't. It was just easier to not stand out.

Nico became more annoying as he aged, but he was the cutest toddler in the world. Luca remembered leaning against the doorframe the day after Bianca's sixth birthday, and watching him scream and cry about the family moving to America for a little while.

“I won’t go! I won’t go!” Nico screamed. "I won't leave Venice!"

“Nico,” Mamma chided. “You’re a big boy, my little angel, you can do anything, even if it’s hard.”

“I WON’T GO!” he shrieked. “I’ll run away! I’ll live with the orphans! Do you want me to live with the orphans?!” His cheeks were hot, red, and covered in tears. When Mamma ignored him, he only screamed louder. “You hate me! I hate you! You hate me!” He collapsed on the floor and screamed, drumming his fists on the ground.

“All right,” Mamma said. “Hmm, Alessandro, will you get a bag? Nico wants to live with the orphans.”

Alessandro complied with a roll of his eyes and a sour look. Nico kept on screaming. Alessandro came back with a knapsack. Mamma hummed as she gathered the items. “Well, Nico, what will you need? Here is some food, and your blanket, why don’t you run upstairs and take Ele from your bed? I will go to the water closet and get you a bar of soap.”

“I’LL LIVE WITH ORPHANS!” Nico screamed at the top of his lungs. “I HATE THE AOSTA VALLEY! I WON’T GO! I WON’T GO! I WON’T GO! I WON’T GO! I WON’T GO!”

“Grandpa? Will you get Nico’s clothes and Ele? I need to finish quickly so he can get to the orphans before nighttime.”

Nonno returned with the items. The bag was packed. Nico kept throwing his tantrum. “Up you go,” Mamma said as she lifted him off the floor, kicking and screaming. She wrestled the knapsack into his arms and ushered him out the door. “Out, out. I’m sure you will find the orphans before the sun sets.”

Mamma pushed him onto the street. He looked back at her, standing in the doorway with Bianca crying and clutching her leg. “Nico!” Bianca cried. She took him way too seriously. “Nico, don’t go!”

But Nico made up his mind. With tears in his eyes, he marched out the door and followed the brick steps to the cobblestone road. That is, until he got to the canal outside his house. He stopped.

“Well?” Mamma asked from the doorway. “On you go, Nico.”

“I can’t!” Nico sniffed, wiping his nose with his hand. “I’m not allowed to cross the street by myself!”

Luca chuckled at the memory. Alessandro, however, had never found his antics amusing. When Mamma was away and no adults were around, he used to yell at him, even sometimes slapping him in the face when he acted out. Luca regretted not standing up for him. He was a little kid with severe ADHD, how was he supposed to act?

And then there were the shades. Mortals and demigods who could see through the Mist couldn't see them. No, it was strictly an Underworld thing. Their long-dead ancestors who couldn't enter the Underworld because of unfinished business or insufficient funds wandered the grounds of the di Angelo villa, frozen as they were when they had died.

Luca remembered a Halloween night when they were more numerous than ever before. He had climbed into the attic to hide because it was difficult for the shades to move very far from the ground. He found Nico up there inside a fortress of blankets. The inside was filled with candles and rosaries and statues of Jesus and Mary. Luca huddled up next to him, throwing an arm over his shoulders and making bad jokes. Bianca joined them soon after. Nerezza and Alessandro didn't.

Nerezza's penchant for all things involving death made her Alessandro's favorite. She didn't fear the sight of her great-great-great grandmother with a gaping hole over her heart. She had no problem with killing small animals as a child, and Luca wouldn't be surprised if she had killed a human at some point. But Nico, despite doing some 'experiments' with Bianca, didn't care much for death. And Alessandro hated that.

On Halloween, a couple of weeks before Bianca's eleventh birthday, and a couple of months before Mamma's death, Alessandro dragged Luca out of bed. Mamma was out of town for a tour. Bleary-eyed and confused, he followed him to Nico's hideout, or the Jesus Cave, as Luca liked to call it.

Alessandro had him drag Nico to the graveyard adjacent to the villa. As much as it pained Luca to hear his brother's screams, the shotgun Alessandro had stolen from Nonno's office made him too scared to resist. Luca tossed him into a mausoleum, and Alessandro bolted the door shut. They left him there overnight.

When Nico left, he wasn't the same. His laughs seemed forced, his smiles didn't reach his eyes, and he utterly despised Luca and Alessandro. The Jesus Cave days were over, and instead, Nico would go to Nerezza's room on bad nights. When he was scared, or injured, or needed help with his homework, he'd go to Bianca, not Luca.

On December 4, 1942, when Luca was still basking in the joy of having recently turned thirteen, Mamma died, Alessandro left, and Luca was in charge. And he had lost both of his brothers.


	2. hey, sister, do you still believe in love, I wonder?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life returns to normal. Focuses on Bianca and Nerezza.

Bianca visited Nerezza once in the psych ward. She had nail polish stuffed in her pocket and hair ties around her wrist. She thought it would jog Nerezza's memory if she brought them out. She'd say, 'Wait a minute, you never painted my nails or did my hair.' And then it would be just like old times, being passive aggressive to each other and wishing they were with their brothers instead.

"She had an episode yesterday, so you can't go into the same room as her," the nurse said. "It's for your safety and her mental health." She stopped herself from asking if isolation from her family was making her any better.

Bianca saw her through a glass window. Her legs and arms were strapped to a table like she was an animal. Multiple needles were in her arm, pumping her full of mind-numbing drugs. Nerezza looked at her through the window, not an ounce of recognition in her face.

Bianca left quickly, feeling sick to her stomach. She threw up in her toilet at home, trying to erase the look Nerezza had on her face from her memory. That was when Bianca was nineteen. She was thirty-three now, and according to Nico, Nerezza's condition hadn't changed. She hadn't visited her after that unsettling incident, and didn't plan to anytime soon.

...

Bianca toddled to her mother's bedside, unsteady on her short legs. Papà lifted her up so she could see over the shoulders of her aunts and uncles and brothers. Mamma motioned for him to set her down on the bed.

In her arms was a blanket that was wrapped like it was a loaf of bread.

"Bia, this is your new sister, Nerezza," Mamma said warmly.

Bianca crinkled her nose. Inside the blanket was a pink-skinned creature with a head too large for its body. Zia Fiorella cooed at it, which irritated Bianca. They only did that for Nico and Bianca and the other little kids. This ugly thing didn't even look human.

"It doesn't look like a girl," was all Bianca had to say. Her relatives laughed, even Papà, who never laughed. Bianca didn't get the joke.

"Maybe not now, but she will," Mamma said. "She will be a beautiful little girl, just like you."

Just like you.

That was the phrase that troubled Bianca. She had never wanted a sister. She liked having all brothers. They were funny, and dumb, and they couldn't be mean to her because she was a girl. And most of all, she was unique. The only girl among four children, no one could forget her like they sometimes forgot Nico and Luca. Now she was the middle child, and one of two girls. Maybe it wasn't very nice, but she wanted Nerezza to go back to where she came from.

...

The retrieval of Nico led to the discovery of a new power. Luca dubbed it shadow-tracking. Essentially, if they focused on the soul of someone, the shadows would guide them to their location.

Luca found him in San Francisco, in the camp for Roman demigods Father had mentioned in passing. The Romans didn't know of the Great Prophecy, and were therefore less of a threat than the Greeks, but it was still best to avoid them. Greek or Roman, demigods distrusted children of Hades/Pluto, and they thought they should spare themselves the rejection by staying away.

When Nico began to phase through small objects and their hands, Bianca sat by his bedside to keep an eye on him. They had no solution if the fading continued.

"We were worried about you," Bianca said to her sleeping brother. She attempted to brush some hair out of his face, but her hand went through him. 

Nerezza walked into the room, blowing a piece of gum (Which was odd considering neither Bianca nor Luca wasted money on chewing gum.) and holding a soccer ball underneath her arm.

"You shouldn't have been," she said. "He can kill any monster through the power of annoyance."

Bianca smiled. "The one thing no one can defeat. He'd take out his stupid cards and talk until they threw themselves on his sword. You're a saint for playing that game with him."

Nerezza shrugged. "There isn't much to do in here. We can only play soccer for so long."

"I wish Papà had waited to release us until Alessandro could as well," Bianca said. "Putting Luca in charge was a mistake. The power goes straight to his head and his decisions aren't the greatest. But then again, Alessandro would be even worse."

Nerezza glared. She was the only one who liked Alessandro, and she took every joke and insult against him seriously.

"I miss him," Nerezza said.

"Me too," Bianca lied. In truth, she didn't miss him at all. 

Nico groaned and rolled over.

Nerezza started to sing softly. 

"Ninna nanna, ninna oh  
Questo bimbo a chi lo dò ?  
Se lo dò alla Befana,  
Se lo tiene una settimana.  
Se lo dò all'uomo nero,  
Se lo tiene un anno intero.  
Ninna nanna, ninna oh,  
Questo bimbo me lo terrò!"

"Mamma used to sing it for us," Nerezza explained, "when we would have nightmares or be restless in bed."

Bianca remembered that lullaby, but it was from so long ago. Back when she and Luca shared the nursery. Mamma would come back, her voice a bit raspy from rehearsals and performances, and sing them to sleep. Bianca had taken it for granted back then, claiming that as a four-year-old, she was too old to be sung to sleep by her mother. She would do anything to hear one of her lullabies again.

...

As soon as Nico was awake, Nerezza crept into his room. He was lying in bed, staring straight at the ceiling. He couldn't touch anything, so there wasn't much for him to do. Nerezza sat cross-legged on the other side of the bed.

"What was it like?" she asked, eager for any news of the outside world.

Nico told a story of a place with Roman-style architecture and people dressed in togas. But the most significant part of it was the existence of demigod families.

"So they can actually survive into adulthood?" Nerezza asked. "And have jobs and kids. Sembra fantastico! Too bad they'd never let us in."

"Sounds like a life of mediocrity to me," Nico shrugged. "Why would you want to live like a mortal when you can be more?"

"You mean dead?" Nerezza asked.

"Stop resigning yourself to dying young. If we were normal demigods, sure, but we aren't. We see a monster, we can teleport away."

"And then spend days unconscious. We're living on borrowed time. Eventually, Father will stop protecting us, and we'll die."

Nico looked at her in concern, probably because she sounded so nonchalant about dying.

"So you don't have any goals in life?"

"No. What's the point, they'll never be realized?" Nerezza said. It was a hard truth. Even though most demigods heard it and repeated it to others, few of them took it seriously. They went ahead making plans and worrying about saving money, only to be brutally killed as teenagers.

"I'd like to be a doctor if I lived long enough," Nico said after a moment of silence. "A surgeon."

"Don't you have to study for a very long time?" Nerezza asked, crinkling her nose. She couldn't imagine being in university for eight years. "Plus, you're an elementary school dropout."

"I'd figure it out," Nico said. And Nerezza believed him. Nico was persistent at everything he did, whether it was learning shadow-travel or getting better at Mythomagic.

"I don't like working," Nerezza said. "I think I'd marry someone rich and then kill them and take their money." Nico's mouth comically gaped. "It's a joke, dumbass."

"What would you name your kids?" Nico asked. "I would name my son Andrea, and my daughter Eliana."

"If it was a boy, Pietro. If it was a girl, Nico." Nico laughed.

"When I'm a surgeon, and you're a rich widow, we'll get houses next to each other. Our kids will be best friends."

Nerezza smiled. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you near my kids."

The two children stayed up all night, planning the futures they knew they wouldn't live to see.

...

Nico stopped fading by the end of the week. The usual routine of eating breakfast at dawn and staying home while Luca and Bianca went out resumed. Nico and Nerezza juggled a soccer ball on the front porch.

"So you want me to go back there?" Nico asked, eyebrow raised in disbelief. "You know I nearly died last time, right? I've only just recovered."

"I'll do the teleporting this time," Nerezza said. "I just don't want to go alone. And if I leave you here, you'll tell them where I went."

Nico frowned. "But, like, why though?"

"Because it's fun."

"It really isn't."

"You don't know what's fun. Besides, they aren't even a threat."

"But we could die on the journey," Nico said. "And I'm not coming with you." Nerezza kicked the ball at his head, but he ducked.

"Please?"

"No. I won't be responsible for your death. Father would kill me."

Nerezza stuck her tongue out. "You sound like Luca."

"Well, when you think about it--"

"Don't you dare," Nerezza interjected. "I know what you're going to say. 'Even though he's annoying, Luca's usually right.' You were going to say that, weren't you?"

"Well, yeah," Nico said. "Like it or not, we're still alive. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"Ain't, really?" Nerezza said. "You sound like an American."

"I like hot dogs," Nico said in a country accent. "I drive a tractor." Nerezza giggled.

"We could go to America if you weren't a coward. And then you could perfect your accent."

"First of all, the answer's no, and second, what are you talking about? My accent is flawless. All Americans talk like this."

"No, they don't."

"Have you ever met an American? How would you know?"

"Come on, Nico. Andiamo!"

"Even if I did agree, it would be stupid to attempt it now. Luca's still on our case," Nico said.

"All I heard was agree," Nerezza said.

...

Eventually, Nerezza admitted defeat and stalked off into the attic. From the window there, she could see much more than from the porch. Nearby farms, gondolas picking up tourists, people shopping. Venice wasn't like it was when she was younger. The cars looked different, people were dressed in clothes that showed more skin. It was such an interesting world, and all she wanted to do was explore.

"Do you think Alessandro misses us?" she asked a small statue of baby Jesus and Mary. It sat on the windowsill, the eyes of Jesus and Mary boring into her. 

Nerezza crawled into the Jesus Cave and pulled out a bottle of black nail polish from under a dusty pillow. The house hadn't been cleaned in over sixty years, so dust was everywhere. Even worse was the bugs. Nerezza left quickly when she spotted a daddy long legs in the corner and sat by the window again.

"Probably not," she told Jesus. She took the cap off the nail polish and scraped the brush on the sides of the bottle. "It's only been what, a day for him? I feel bad for him. When he gets out, it'll feel like a week has passed when it's been years. He and Luca will be practically the same age." She finished painting her pointer finger. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. "Father should have taken all of us out at the same time. Who knows why he didn't."

When Nerezza tried to hold the brush in her left hand in a way that didn't feel awkward, her eye caught something in the distance, outside the window. There was the silhouette of a person, or person-like monster, in the window. The glare of the setting sun behind it made it difficult to see if it was human or not.

Nerezza sprinted down to Luca's room, leaving behind the nail polish and baby Jesus. "C'è un intruso fuori!" she yelled through the closed door, knocking repeatedly. 

Nico poked his head out of his room, revealing his serious bedhead. "Can you keep it down?"

"I'm sure you can handle a katobleps, Rezzie," Luca said. His voice was dreary, and he sounded like he hadn't spoken in a while.

"He's in another one of his moods," Bianca said. "I'll take care of it."

"It's not another katobleps," Nerezza insisted. "I couldn't see very well because of the sun, but it looked human."

"Can I go talk to him?" Nico asked. "People like me more than you guys."

"Fine," Bianca said. She held up a whistle. "If he takes out a weapon or touches you weirdly, blow this." Nico took it and sprinted off.

"Why are we assuming it's a he?" Nerezza wondered aloud. Bianca shrugged.

Bianca knocked on Luca's door. "Stai bene, fratello?" A muffled groan came from inside the room. "I got some gelato, if you want any. It's from a store, not a restaurant, but it's close enough."

"Open the door, Luca," Nerezza said. 

Nonno used to call the odd periods when he would hide in his room for days on end 'melancholy'. The maids would bring him food that he wouldn't eat, and he would only get up to use the bathroom. One time, however, Cristiano, the butler, found him balancing precariously on his windowsill, looking like he wanted to jump. No one ever talked about that time.

...

When Nico returned covered in blood and panicking, the first thing Bianca did was scold him about not whistling. Nerezza noticed that in tough situations, Bianca would frequently fixate on insignificant things. Thankfully, the blood wasn't his. The silhouette was of an injured demigod. None of the tapes had prepared Nico or Nerezza from the gore of demigod life. He had two claw marks, one shallow and going from his left shoulder to his right hip, and another deep one on his right thigh. He had tied a tourniquet above the wound, but blood kept pouring out.

With some difficulty, they brought the man--well, boy, really--to the kitchen table. Bianca dutifully tightened the tourniquet. "Get a needle and thread. And one of Nonno's liquor bottles." Nico raced to retrieve them, but Nerezza was frozen in place, only able to look at the red liquid gushing out of the boy's leg. His soul was wavering, trying to cross into her father's realm. Bianca seemed determined to stop that from happening.

"You can save him, right?" Nico asked Bianca innocently. He chewed on his lip and rocked on his heels.

Bianca examined the leg wound, looking like she was going to faint. "Please don't let it have ruptured the femoral artery, please don't--shit." Nonna would have washed her mouth out with soap for saying that.

"He's going to die, isn't he?" Nico asked, tears in his eyes. He was so sensitive, crying about a boy he had met minutes earlier.

"Yeah, yeah, he will," Bianca said. She put down the needle and thread. There was no need to stitch the wound on his abdomen if he was going to be dead within the hour. Within fifteen minutes, probably.

Tears spilled out of the boy's eyes at Bianca's words. His mouth formed words, but hardly any sound came out. "Pe...per fav...uccidimi."

*Kill me.*

"We're not going to do that," Bianca said firmly.

"We should," Nerezza said. "We're causing him unnecessary suffering. Death would bring relief."

"I'm not going to kill him," Bianca said.

"I can," Nerezza said. Nico looked at her like she was crazy. She ignored it. The boy smiled.

"Graz...ie."

"You won't be able to do it," Bianca said. She handed over a knife. "Killing sounds easy on paper, but actually doing it...most people wouldn't do it even if they had the chance and there were no consequences. Despite what pessimists say, it's not in our nature."

Nerezza wasn't most people. She gripped the boy's hand and steadied the blade over his heart. Her hands shook. Without another thought, she plunged the knife into his heart. Bianca gasped, Nico yelped. His soul fled his body, and it was frozen with a look of belief on its face. It now, not he. The boy was the soul, this was just a corpse.

...

Bianca's relationship with her sister had always been strained. They had a three year age difference, not far apart enough for Nerezza to look up to Bianca, not close enough to be friends. Sisters were supposed to be close, but they weren't. Bianca spent her time with Luca, and Nerezza with Nico and occasionally Alessandro.

Mamma always wanted them to get along. She would buy them matching clothes, and take them shopping and on trips. They weren't too bad, Bianca supposed, but that was because of Mamma. If they were left in a room together during one of those trips, they would sit in silence.

Nerezza liked to draw. So did Nico, but unlike him, she was actually good. Her room was always filled with beautiful sketches that people would admire. But at some point, maybe when more and more shades started appearing, the sketches became darker. People being murdered, described to Nerezza by the shades and brought to life through her art. Monsters with menacing grins standing over fallen demigods. One time, Bianca dug through her pictures, looking for a hair tie or something. She could see the timeline of Nerezza's drawings, how they started using less and less color until they were entirely red and black. People no longer admired them.

Bianca had always seen Nico and Nerezza wandering the grounds with sharp sticks together, but she never used to question what they were doing. Maybe they were sparring, inspired by Father's stories and seeing Alessandro fight. When she found out, she wished they had been. One day, when Bianca and Luca were playing Hide-and-Seek, she heard them while they were on one of their excursions.

"--on't be a bambino, Nico."

"But the blood is gross."

"There's blood inside you. Is that gross?"

"No, because it's staying where it belongs, inside."

From her hiding spot behind a large boulder, Bianca heard a mouse squeaking frantically.

"Put the poor thing out of its misery, Rezzie."

A loud squeal. A ringing in Bianca's ears.

"Happy now? You're such a wimp. I should've played with Alessandro."

It was the first time Bianca had felt something die, and it was at the hands of her two younger siblings. Eventually, Nico stopped experimenting with small animals. As far as Bianca knew, Nerezza never did. She imagined a collection of animal bones hidden somewhere that only Nerezza knew. She imagined her freak of a sister strangling birds. And when Nerezza thoughtlessly killed the stranger, she imagined her being a killer when she grew up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be an actual plot eventually. I took way too long to write this considering the quality. I know there are mistakes, I didn't have the time to edit.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not continue this. It depends if people read and like it. Feel free to comment, just know I will not reply or maybe not even read them. I crumble in the face of criticism and I don't know how to thank people for compliments. The toddler Nico part with him throwing a tantrum was actually from Ghosts of Millenia by ninjagirlmai. You should check her out as she is a way better writer than me. It was partly inspired by Once a Hero by CommanderBear and Lethe by Eridans. Also the Umbrella Academy, because having a lot of siblings seems cool.
> 
> A few things about this universe:
> 
> Alessandro was left in the Lotus because if he left when he was still older than Percy, he would be the subject of the Great Prophecy, making it more likely that he would be killed if he was discovered.
> 
> Hades didn't erase his children's memories because he thought Luca and Alessandro could help their younger siblings through the death of their mother, and therefore didn't need to take them for their protection.
> 
> They were removed once Percy turned 13 and 3 days. Luca was placed in the Lotus when he was 13 and 2 days, so that day will prevent him from activating the prophecy.


End file.
